Life in 1986 - A Few Magazine Ads - Hugo Boss, Cars For Rent, Puma, Just Juice And Stella Artois...

Fashion 1986 - the deelyboppers of a couple of years before had mysteriously disappeared...

Cars for rent... the Toyota MR2, Ford Escort RS Turbo, or the Ford Escort 1.6i Cabriolet - £59.40 a day or £356 a week?! The Lamborghini Countach QV or Ferrari Testarossa - £436.50 per day or £2,619.00 per week?!!!

Incredible...

Martina Navratilova and Boris Becker - "Puma" written all over them. I'll never forget seventeen-year-old Boris's win at Wimbledon in 1985. Probably the most thrilling Wimbledon I ever saw.

"No additives, no mess, no fuss - just juice!"

An advertisement for Just Juice featured in The Field Story Of Wimbledon, a 1986 magazine published to celebrate 100 years of championships at the All England Club. Wimbledon actually celebrated its centenary in 1977, but the 100th championships were not played until 1986 because of years missed during the two world wars.

Do you remember the 1980s Just Juice advertising jingle on the telly? "No pips, no additives, no preservatives, just juice..." Some days that jingle went round and round in my head from morning till night!

More liquid refreshment - this time lager at "La Brasserie" - very posh indeed. In fact, posh to the max, darlin'...

"Reassuringly expensive" - sounds barking, doesn't it? But it made perfect sense back in those 1980s days of yuppiedom - yer pays for quality yer see!

I loved a few pints of Stella Artois. It was pricey, but got me... er... muddled and jolly quicker. In fact it got me muddled and jolly very quickly. And lively too. We used to call it 'rocket fuel'!

BANG! How The 1980s Began... Tabloid Snippets From The First Two Years...

1980 - Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please... The anthem of that summer. LOVE IT!!!! Listen to it whilst you're reading through this article - it'll help bring that early 1980s vibe flooding back...

"TWO PINTS OF LAGER AND A PACKET OF CRISPS PLEASE!" we all squawked in the summer of 1980. This was thanks to Splodgenessabounds, of course. 

June 24, 1980:

Britain's most outrageous punk group have rocked into the charts with their first single.

The band, Splodgenessabounds, pour out four letter words, show their bare bottoms and break wind on stage.

Their recording of Simon Templar has reached No. 7 only four weeks after its release.

But it is the B-side - a song called Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Please - which has caught on with the fans.

The group's founder, lead singer Max Splodge, 21, said in London last night: "Before I take my trousers down and moon, I always take a special powder so that I can break wind effectively."

The only person in the eight-strong band without a bare bottom role is girl singer Baby Greensleeves, 22.

Baby, who sometimes takes her dog Two Pints to the group's concerts, said: "I'd moon as well, but it would take too much time because of the gear I wear."

And what was the song about? Some desperate young lad trying to get served in a packed-out pub. Been there so many times. Mind you, if I'd been a barmaid/bloke, I probably wouldn't have served me either.

Max Splodge, Two Pints... writer and singer, spilled the beans about the song years later:

"One night I rushed into The Crown in Chislehurst waving a pound note, trying to buy two pints of lager and a packet of crisps. The bell rang and the bloke wouldn't serve me. The guys in the band were out of their heads on magic mushrooms and thought this was hysterical. The next day I put down a drum track and bass line and just shouted, 'two pints of lager and a packet of crisps...' Mike Reid played it on Radio 1 and it started selling 17,000 copies a day. No one could believe it. It sold a quarter of a million copies and got to No 7."

Cor, the '80s were starting out dead posh, weren't they? 

 Splodgenessabounds' wonderful 1980 anthem on glorious vinyl, tucked away on the B-side with Michael Smith's Talking Bum.

 1981 - England's burning...

Well, of course, we all remember the Style Decade! The glitzy 1980s! Yuppies! Docklands developments! Big Bang! The Credit Boom! Big hair and shoulder pads!

Ho, ho, weren't they up themselves, mateyboots?

Well, actually, one of the things that fascinates me the most about the 1980s is what a turbulent and contrasting decade it was, and nothing speaks louder about that than the good old tabloid newspapers of the era, those we propped up against the Daddy's Sauce bottle as we read and gronffed down our egg and chips early in the decade, or against the bottle of fancy salad dressing as we read and gronffed down our beautifully prepared Nouvelle Cuisine later on.

Let's continue to trawl through some early 1980s tabloid snippets... no yuppies. No mobile phones. Three TV channels and Top of The Pops on Thursday nights...

In my street, none of the school leavers stayed on to sixth form or had the remotest desire to attend university. Oh no, we wanted out of school, and that was the way it had been for us, the lower working classes, the great unwashed, forever. During the 1980s, this would begin to change, but when I left school it certainly wasn't the case. Unemployment had been a problem for years, and with Thatcher focusing on inflation, the number of jobless folk was accelerating through the roof in the early 1980s. But we poor sods had no thought of "staying on" - and it would not have been financially viable for parents round my district anyway.

No yuppies in the early 1980s, no credit boom... riots, royals, CB radio, New Romantics, Space Invaders, and Rubik's Cube were the new trends popping one by one onto the scene.

One writer referred to "The Swinging Sixties And Savage Seventies". As the 1980s got underway, I wondered if they would be remembered as "The Aggro Eighties"? Actually, there was a lot of aggro THROUGHOUT the 1980s, so perhaps it's a worthy title, but so much else happened in that ten years that there are many others!

Anyway, sit back and continue (hopefully) to enjoy this visit to 1980 and 1981, via the Daily Mirror...

1981 - "There's Going To Be A Rumble Tonight"...The riots... in 1980, there was some trouble, centred around racial tensions, a youth leader commented he'd seen it coming for fifteen years or so. In 1981, inner cities burned and shops were plundered as trouble makers, opportunists, political activists and bored youths joined in.

July 9, 1981:

Hours before the latest explosion of mob violence in North London, the word was passed around: "There's going to be a rumble tonight!"

The news spread rapidly through local pubs, youth clubs and even school playgrounds.

It resulted in a crowd of around 400 youths converging on Wood Green and turning it into a battlefield of looting and rioting.

Yesterday police, community leaders and shopkeepers - who were robbed of thousands of punds' worth of goods - were in no doubt that the mob was well organised.

More than six hours before the eruption, the Daily Mirror was warned that trouble was about to break out.

A man, who refused to give his name, phoned the Mirror to say: "There will be trouble in Wood Green High Road tonight."

The caller explained that he had overheard a group of youths in a North London pub boasting that they were going to "take on the police".

At about the same time, police themselves heard about the impending violence.

This was revealed yesterday to local police Commander Jim Dickenson.

He said: "It was obviously organised by somebody.

"You don't get hundreds of people massing in one place by coincidence."

Haringey Council leader Robin Young also got a tip-off hours before.

He said: "Undoubtedly it was all pre-arranged. The word went round that there was going to be a rumpus."

Youths in orgy of plunder

Moss Side

Shopkeepers were last night counting the cost of mob violence which exploded in Moss Side, Manchester, early yesterday.

Mobs of youths threw petrol bombs, smashed windows and looted shops, leaving a trail of damage estimated at £300,000.

They stoned fireman who were forced to retreat and watch helplessly as two shops were gutted...

In Liverpool, 25 people - the youngest aged eleven - appeared in court following the Toxteth riots.

They were charged with offences ranging from assaults on police to criminal damage. Most of the adults charged were remanded in custody.

Meanwhile, the BBC was apparently giving instructions on Radio 2 on how to make a Molotov cocktail. Good grief!

Wednesday, July 8, 1981: 

A bomb boob on JY show

The BBC blundered yesterday by broadcasting how to make a petrol bomb.

BBC community relations correspondent John Clare, who has been covering the Liverpool riots, described the ingredients of a Molotov cocktail on Jimmy Young's Radio 2 show.

The BBC received a number of complaints and Jimmy made an apology later in his show.

On the same day, a letter published in the Mirror's Public Opinion section asked an interesting question...

As I lived in Toxteth until about two years ago, the riots there are less of a surprise to me than most. It was obvious that the levels of social deprivation I witnessed could not continue without some reaction sooner or later.

I wonder, though, why riots have only broken out now under a Tory Government.

Ted Heath and the Left Wing Mirror were well and truly on Thatcher's case, and Lady Di caused shock amongst traditionalists as Royal Wedding fever raged...

 Thursday, July 2, 1981:

Lady Diana Spencer will NOT promise to obey Charles when they marry on July 29.

She will pledge herself only to "love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health" at the ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral.

Her decision after talks with Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, breaks with the tradition followed by Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Anne.

But it delighted women's libbers like Nell Noell of the Women's Rights Movement.

But Lady Di didn't go far enough for Nell, who said: "I hope she will avoid the humiliation of using her husband's name.

"She should stick to name she was born with and not agree to be called Princess Charles."

Flippin' 'eck! The times were changing, however, quite frankly I couldn't have cared less about the Royal Wedding - and as for Feminism - YUCK! - one-sided, cherry-picked lies aimed at vilifying one half of the human race. Men. I'm in total agreement with Karen Straughan. But what's that at the bottom of the front page? The topless Mary Poppins? Good grief! SURELY NOT?!!!

Eeeek!

Thursday, July 2, 1981:

AT LAST.. this is the moment when sugary British star Julie Andrews loses all her inhibitions and Mary Poppins finally pops out.

Julie plays a fading Mary Poppins-type actress in her new film, SOB, the story of the machinations of the Hollywood film moguls.

She is called on to go topless in a movie to save the studio from going bust.

It's quite a wrench for the poor girl, but finally she is convinced that fans will pack the box offices if she is seen in the bare flesh.

There is another eye-popping scene where she bares her bottom for a quack doctor to inject her with a muscle-relaxant drug so she can pluck up courage to peel off for the cameras.

What did Julie think of her part in the film, directed by husband Blake Edwards? "It gave me quite a kick," she said.

That nice Mary Poppins certainly wouldn't have approved.

I was so shocked, I nearly passed me fags round. 

In other news... Ronald Reagan was elected President of the USA in November 1980. He was shot in 1981, but survived.

Oh well, we'll watch Wimbledon! In 1981, Wimbledon was a bastion of tradition, a far more staid, and in fact downright posh, affair than it is today. The perfect retreat from the stresses of the highly modern early 1980s world.

Oh yeah?!!!!

"You CANNOT be serious!" John McEnroe was making waves as he dragged Wimbledon out of the highly polite "More Tea Vicar?" 1930s and into the brash, "In-Yer-Face" 1980s....

Lady Diana Spencer watched at Wimbledon yesterday as tennis superbrat John McEnroe smashed his way into the final with a volley of abuse.

Lady Diana, a keen tennis fan, was a surprise visitor to Wimbledon. She was given a standard ovation when she arrived in the Royal box.

Then the 14,000-strong crowd watched in amazement as McEnroe made thirteen loud comments to the umpire and shouted obscenities at spectators.

The behaviour on court brought a public warning and penalty point with the possibility of a £5,000 fine.

And twenty minutes after his semi-final victory, over Australia's Rod Frawley, the fiery American was still at it. 

He stormed out of a press conference after calling newsmen "liars" and "trash".

McEnroe's first-set public warning for unsportsmanlike behaviour came when he suddenly bellowed: "I hate umpires. I get screwed by them in this place."

In the final set he lost a penalty point for shouting, "You are a disgrace to mankind."  The umpire took it as an insult, but McEnroe later said he had been talking to himself.

At the press conference McEnroe's first explosion came when he was asked whether the return to New York of his girlfriend, Stacy Margolin, meant they had split up.

The 22-year-old New Yorker shouted: "People like you make me sick. It is none of your business in the first place and the answer is no."

He went on: "You guys are sh*t and trash and I want you to quote me on that."

During McEnroe's outburst Lady Diana's name was mentioned. He suddenly paused and said: "She's a terrific person."

Before sweeping out of the room McEnroe told reporters: "I don't want to waste time on low people like you."

The uproar continued after the star's exit when a fight broke out between two newsmen - a Britain and an American - which sent chairs and microphones flying.

 Phew, feel quite exhausted after this little trip back... Time to go and have a cuppa and a quick play with my ZX 80, I think. More soon...

More 1980s Sports Wear For Men - The Way Things Changed - 1981 And 1989....

UGH! 1981! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... "Sporty mix 'n' match separates in a comfortable jersey-knit with 'tennis' motif". Never fear. As the 1980s continued, sportswear would never look the same again. Thank heavens.

Some of these aren't too bad... but hardly exciting.

In fact, 1981 was simply not very exciting in the world of sportswear. And just look at that dreadful bubble perm (far right)! Still (smiles fondly), good old Fred Perry!

1989 - the ultimate year of the 1980s - "The Style Decade" - and sportswear was certainly stylish by then. So much had changed since 1981. All the designs featured are SO much of the era. And that lad in the second pic looks like he's finding the fact a painful experience. Makes me eyes water.

Tragically, by 1989, many of us were on pose overdrive. But never mind. Those tracksuit designs are now called "classic" and highly sought after. Classic? They're pure 1980s, darlings! But fashion snobs HATE acknowledging the fact! Nevertheless, these designs are very influential and popular today. And I LOVE them!

Le coq sportif. By 1989, some even quite working class men were going to the gym! Sports clothes for men had become colourful, modern, designer. So handy for getting down to a serious workout. Or nipping out to the corner shop for a packet of fags.

1980s Fashions... Suitable Trends For Today?

1986 - posing overdrive for women...

 Looking around, I see many 1980s-influenced fashions around me. The leggings. The deelyboppers. The blonde hair streaks. The gelled or moussed look. '80s sportswear-influenced designs on outdoor coats and modern sportswear. Stone and acid washed jeans. The turned back/pushed up jacket sleeve look. I've even seen jelly shoes! And lots more... 

Clearly (although many hate to admit it) the '80s are now highly influential in the modern fashion world. Here's a few tips from a few UK mail order catalogues of the 1980s for those who want to get the look just right... 

Male posing for the 1980s... the trouble with the pushed up sleeve effect is that they keep coming down. The '80s look is very high maintenance indeed. Try walking with your arms close to your side, or buying a jacket with a nice contrasting inner lining so that you can solve the problem by turning back your sleeves instead of pushing them up.

Where Jane Fonda first flew in 1982 with her Workout video, others soon followed. Aerobics woz 'ere. In fact, as the '80s went on, sport and fitness became a positive mania, and sportswear became ever more colourful and expensive as we entered the era of designer sports fashions. Fit for business. Fit for life.

"It's my broker!" grins the geezer on the chunky phone, seeking to impress. Looks like a right yuppie, doesn't he? Love the suit. So very stylish... And by the mid-1980s, style was what it was all about. Well, the '80s idea of style, that  was.

 Some great mid-1980s winter warmth jackets. I had the one on the left!

 Lustre look sheen fabric... the '80s shiny suit... brill! I've still got one of mine, a grey one with over large shoulders, and recall sliding down the wall at Tracy's Nite Spot in it after quaffing back a bit too much of the Reassuringly Expensive Stella Artois, circa 1987. I'd been leaning against the wall nonchalantly, eyeing up the talent, glass in hand, when I felt my descent begin.  I managed not to spill a drop.

"Hello, is Giles there please? It's his broker calling."

"Giles, it's your broker!"

"Tell him I'm in the bog, would you purlease, mateyboots?"

Something for 1986 kids. I'm absolutely positive that the lad on the left is (then) future pop star Chesney Hawkes (remember that rascally early 1990s hit The One And Only? We do. But we wish we didn't).

Late 1980s - terrific designs for posey male sportswear, hugely influential on the 1990s, and still influencing today's sports fashions.

1989...

Making a splash in '89...

Black leggings, ending around the knee, swept into fashion around 1982. And were still up there in 1989.

More from 1989. That belt looks really industrial, doesn't it? What did it mean? Search me...

And a last blast from 1989... Hot off the beach... WOW!

But suppose you've seen all these delights, you've thought it all through, and you don't want to adopt ANY of these swingorilliant  '80s trends?

Well, suit yourself.

There's no accounting for taste...

1980s TV Ads: Shredded Wheat - "Bet You Can't Eat Three!", Nina Myskow and Ian "Beefy" Botham...

One of the most successful  and best-remembered TV ad campaigns of the 1980s was for the breakfast cereal Shredded Wheat, featuring several screen and sports stars, and the tagline "Bet You Can't Eat Three!"

News Of The World TV columnist Nina Myskow launched into one of the ads' stars, England cricketer Ian Botham, in 1983 whilst the ad campaign was in full swing. 

What, I wonder has the cricketing disaster Down Under done for the sales of Shredded Wheat, so heavily advertised by Ian Botham on telly? And yes, his bum does look as if he's stuffing down at least three at each sitting. Does a spoonful now turn to Ashes in his mouth?

Ouch, Ms M! The gentler sex? Oh, yeah... Poor old Beefy...

1981: John McEnroe - "You CANNOT Be Serious!"

Heeere's Johnny!

American John McEnroe ended Björn Borg's record run of victories at Wimbledon in 1981 and ended up in hot water with the All England Club for some temperamental outbursts. We, the viewing public, were delighted. "You CANNOT be serious!" we parroted and "The Ball was IN!"

The Sun, 6/7/1981:

Superbrat John McEnroe stormed out of Britain yesterday after an amazing final insult to Wimbledon's top officials.

He snubbed the traditional champions' dinner at London's Savoy Hotel... and went out celebrating his men's singles triumph with friends instead.

His absence angered All-England Club chiefs - and women's champion Chris Lloyd made a blistering attack on him when she spoke at the dinner.

She told the guests: "I have to make two speeches, one for myself and one for you know who.

"I do not have the vocabulary and as an American I wish to apologise for him."

McEnroe already faces fines of up to £7, 375 for his tantrums and bad language during Wimbledon fortnight - and his final insult could bring HIM a snub.

His non-appearance will be discussed by the All-England Club today and they may well decide not to grant him honorary membership which Wimbledon champions usually receive.

McEnroe is understood to have been angry because he could not get tickets to Saturday's dinner for friends - and decided to have a party of his own.

He was in a happier mood earlier when he phoned his blonde girlfriend Stacey Margolin in America.

She said: "He called me after the final and said 'I showed them'. I'm so delighted for him."

But McEnroe was Superbrat again at London's Heathrow Airport as he barged angrily past photographers on to a New York-bound Concorde.

This article from the Daily Mirror, 17/11/1981, reveals that John was in the cart again...

... tennis spoilsport John McEnroe, fined £350 for his ill-mannered display at Wembley on Sunday, was flying home to New York feeling sorry for himself.

The 22-year-old Wimbledon champion said at Heathrow Airport: "I felt all alone on the court, as if everyone was against me.

"It gives you a reason not to want to return." But he added: "I'll be back for Wimbledon."

In more recent years, I've enjoyed listening to John commentating at Wimbledon. He has a sense of humour about his past, a keen eye for the tennis and is a welcome visitor to the All England Club.

I love to see him on the telly - I feel I've watched him grow from lad to man!

1981: The First London Marathon

The idea was inspired by the annual New York City Marathon. Athelete and journalist Chris Brasher, who ran in the event in 1979, was so impressed, he wondered aloud, in an article he wrote for The Observer newspaper, if a similar event could be staged in the UK?

Brasher joined forces with his old friend and fellow runner John Disley, and the two set out to find out what the possibilities were.

In early 1980, Donald Trelford, then editor of The Observer, hosted a lunch so that Brasher and Disley could meet the authorities who would be involved in organising a marathon, including the Greater London Council (GLC), the police, the Amateur Athletics Association and the London Tourist Board.

After some discussion, it was agreed that a London Marathon was possible - and that the idea was worth pursuing.

Chris Brasher revisited America to gain further marathon knowledge.

Many details needed to be ironed out. As 1980 went on, charitable status was established for the event, and the following aims were established:

* To improve the overall standard and status of British marathon running by providing a fast course and strong international competition.

* To show mankind that, on occasions, they can be united.

* To raise money for sporting and recreational facilities in London.

* To help boost London’s tourism.

* To prove that ‘Britain is best’ when it comes to organising major events.

* To have fun, and provide some happiness and sense of achievement in a troubled world.

On 29 March, 1981, the first London Marathon was run. It was a colourful occasion with some fancy dress present...

Did I dream it, or did I see a chicken on the run? There was certainly a waiter who ran the course with a tray and bottle - which weren't stuck together...

Here's a report from the Daily Mail, March 30, 1981...

IT'S A WINNER!

One million people turn out to watch Britain's biggest-ever sporting event

The most amazing sporting event Britain has ever seen turned out to have 5,300 winners yesterday. Around that number finished out of 6,700 who officially started in the first London Marathon and were cheered by a million people as they ran through the streets of the capital.

The first and last to complete the 26 miles and 385 yards symbolised in their different ways the spirit of the occasion.

At the front Dick Beardsley from the United States and Inge Simonsen from Norway linked hands to run the last few yards and stayed a dead heat for the first place.

"What does it matter who wins?" said 24-year-old Beardsley."Every runner who finishes this race is a winner."

Some four hours later, last man home was the oldest competitor 78-year-old Bob Wiseman. "I feel good. It's great to be alive," he said.

The leaders made it an event of the highest athletic quality. At 2 hours, 11 minutes, 48 seconds, the joint winners ran the fastest marathon ever in Britain - and 142 runners finished under 2 hours 30 minutes.

Among them: The first Briton, 34-year-old Trevor Wright, who was third, and the first woman, 43-year-old Joyce Smith.

Personalities in the field included disc jockey Jimmy Savile in a gold lame track suit, whose run raised £50,000 from sponsors for Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and race director Chris Brasher, who said: "It went like a dream."

He is already talking about holding the second London Marathon - on April 4, 1982.

St John Ambulance crews stationed along the route treated hundreds of runners for exhaustion, but the worst damage reported was a broken leg. "We are surprised there weren't more casualties - everyone was very fit," an ambulance spokesman said.

The drizzly conditions were ideal for marathon running - and competitors praised the camaraderie of those taking part and the encouragement given them by spectators.

This aspect was summed up by 29-year-old jogger Ron Crowley, from Liverpool. Four miles from the finish, he was on the point of quitting after stumbling to a halt.

Then, he said, he heard the crowd yelling out his number.

"No one has ever cheered like that for me before," he said. "They gave me heart to go on." 

The Daily Mail "COMMENT" section commented:

It's popular. It's freaky. It's here to stay.

The first London marathon was a blistering success. Didn't matter that some top runners chose snootily to stay away. The time was a cracking one anyway.

But, as if to point up the frolicsome gutsiness of this unprecedented happening in Britain, the Norwegian and the American, who won, deliberately crossed the line together holding hands.

And what crowds there were lining the 26-mile route that wound its way back and forth along banks of the Thames from Greenwich to Westminster.

Neither the drizzle nor the loss of an hour's sleep could keep them away.

The atmosphere was peculiarly British... a strange mixture of waiting for the royal procession to go by and egging on a competitor at a father's race in a school sports.

For, with close to 7,000 entrants, almost every family watching knew somebody taking part.

All credit to Chris Brasher for doing so much to promote this American-style folk sport here in Britain.

Catch on?

Nobody will be able to stop it now.

Slight, unassuming middle-aged women shaming thousands of would-be iron men. Balding, bespectacled bobbing chaps, doing every bit as well as athletic-looking bounders. The streets of a big city given over for a few hours at least to a challenge that is human in scale and classless in appeal.

This show will run and run.

All those who took part yesterday - whether they finished or whether they didn't - can reckon themselves pioneers in the making of a grand new British sporting tradition. In years to come, Marathon Day will eclipse Boat Race Day and could even upstage Derby Day.

1981: Shergar Wins The Derby

The 1981 Derby - a newspaper report which appeared on 4 June:

Walter Swinburn, boy wonder, moved straight into the superman bracket at Epsom yesterday.

And the Michael Stoute-trained Shergar on whom Walter landed a runaway Derby triumph, is certainly in the superhorse class. Shergar may have been odds-on favourite and expected to win, but could hardly have had better handling from his 19-year-old rider.

Shergar is probably the most famous horse in recent history, but sadly not for stories like the one featured above. In February 1983, he was taken from an Irish stud farm and was never seen again.

Saturday Wrestling On The Telly...

Much-loved Big Daddy, aka Shirley Crabtree, advertising Daddies Sauce/Ketchup in 1985.

World of Sport had begun in 1965, with Dickie Davis arriving as anchorman in 1968. The TV Times cutting shown above is from March 1985 - with the show nearing the end of its run.

-

Most people I knew, regardless of gender, loved the wrestling.

-

My gran thought it was "better than a trip to the pantomime"; cousin Sue watched to ogle young men like Danny Collins; my mates and I watched " 'cos it was a right larf".

-

Wrestling continued to crop up on ITV on Saturdays after the end of World of Sport.

-

So that was all right.

1982: Erika Roe - The Twickenham Streaker

Twickers Winning Streak

Sunday Mirror, 3/1/1982

This daring girl was the tops for 60,000 rugby fans at Twickenham - and millions of TV viewers yesterday. She did her strip during the England v. Australia international. Oh, and by the way, England won.

End of newspaper blurb.

“Streaking” - throwing off all your clothes and cutting a dash in public - was (apparently) a craze in America in the early 1970s.

It probably came about because of all that 1960s “Be free, Man!” stuff - although people had run amok in public naked for kicks before that. 20th Century Words by John Ayto (Oxford, 1999) records this quote from a 1974 American Runner’s World magazine: “During the winter of 1958-9 a group of us ‘streaked’ all over Berkeley.”

So perhaps it was the rockin’ rollin’ 50s that set the trend in motion?

Who knows?

Over here in England, we’d sniggered over a song called The Streak in 1974 (“Here he comes! There he goes! And he ain’t wearin’ no clothes!”), and one or two hardy souls had flashed their bits, but the craze never really got going (not surprising when you consider our climate).

And then, in January 1982, a young woman called Erika Roe braved the English elements, together with a pal, and invaded the rugby pitch at Twickenham - bravely carrying all before her.
 
She is our best remembered and most celebrated streaker…
 Titters At Twickers

I say chaps! It’s shirts off at the big, big match

A buxom brunette had a nice try yesterday - at converting millions of TV viewers to the jolly old sport of rugger.

She ran on to the pitch at half-time during the England v Australia match at Twickenham - and promptly began to peel off her blouse.

There were hearty roars of approval from the 60,000 chaps in the crowd as the stripper - with the chest measurements of a full-back - and a girl-friend, built more like a fly-half, tried to do a lap of honour.

Even the England team, who were getting a pep-talk on the field, couldn’t keep their eyes off the topless antics.

Skipper Billy Beaumont said: “I was trying to get through to the boys - but most of them seemed to be gazing over my shoulder.”

Finally the topless pair were tackled and put into touch by smiling policemen. A 24-year-old girl from Hampshire was later questioned and warned she may be summoned for insulting behaviour.

The display, shown live on BBC’s “Grandstand”, didn’t distract the England team - they went on to win 15 - 11, Beaumont’s 11th win in 20 matches as skipper.
 
He’s clearly on a winning streak.

Daily Mirror, 7/1/1982

Public opinion on Erika's ... er... revelations differed, as seen above. Some blokes (probably an awful lot!) liked them:

Thanks Erika Roe for doing a streak at the televised Twickenham rugby international. I've seldom seen so many smiling faces at work as the lads discussed it all on Monday morning.

Good luck to Erika. She has given the men of Britain a wonderful tonic.

Of course, women seeking "equality" were not so keen:

God help our chances of being treated as equals when someone like Erika Roe thoroughly enjoys streaking in front of thousands of rugby fans. What a silly woman she is.

And what did I think? Well, I could see both sides.

"You've Got To Have A J-O-B If You Wanna Be With Me..."

Gwen Guthrie's Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent... heard this the other day for the first time in years. It sounded as 80s and as excellent as ever. Tremendously likeable song and video - all rather tongue in cheek, and great fun.

Mexico '86 Panini sticker album. "Hand of God". I'll say no more.